Many of our staff assigned to the Rionet Center Shinjuku are certied hearing aid technicians who are hearing aid experts.In this article, I visit the specialty shop to interview the experts working on the frontlines of supporting people’s hearing.while they can hear sounds, they have trou-ble understanding speech. ese speech perception diculties are due to the deteri-oration of a sensory organ called the cochlea inside the inner ear as you age. is results in muddled speech perception. Unfortunately, there are limits to what the hearing aid can do for this condition. So we want to have our customers try out a pair rst.”During the rental period, we have our customers return to the shop in a week to ten days, aer they’ve tried out the hearing aids in normal everyday settings at home and work. en the hearing aids are tted once again, and the process is repeated. Hearing aids, especially those that oer the highest performance, can cost up to several hundred thousand yen. ey’re denitely not cheap, thus this system helps give our customers some peace of mind about their purchase.Manned around the year by experts on hearingWe rst oer a counseling session to customers for whom doctors have recom-mended hearing aids and ask them why they rst considered trying them. en, to be sure we can propose an appropriate hearing aid for each customer, we check their hearing not just based on hearing tests, but also tests of speech perception and other potential hearing issues. en, based on the customer’s hearing and their lifestyle, we select a hearing aid type and proceed with the tting. During the tting session, we have our customers listen to various sounds to conrm their hearing and comfort when Lowering customer hurdles through a free hearing aid rental service“Rionet Center Shinjuku basically ful-lls two major roles,” says Wataru Enosawa, the head of Rionet Center Shinjuku. “One is to serve our customers as a facility that focuses on hearing aid sales and repairs. e other is to help people visiting hearing aid clinics try out hearing aids. We always have ve expert sta members ready at the shop to perform repairs. So, typically, simple repairs can be completed in about an hour and a half, compared to the norm of up to a week elsewhere. is means our customers oen remark on the convenience of our fast repair work, since it usually equates to the time it takes for a visit to a nearby depart-ment store.” Enosawa has been with Rion for over 30 years and is an expert with extensive experience in hearing-related issues. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, some 100 customers visited the store on a daily basis.“In principle, at our shop, we ask our customers to visit an otorhinolaryngologist (an ear-nose-throat doctor) before purchas-ing their hearing aids. at’s because, in some cases, the problem causing the hearing diculty is treatable. We want our custom-ers to be diagnosed by doctors to conrm that hearing aids are the recommended solution. e rst visit to our shop usually takes one and a half to two hours, from counseling to hearing aid trials. Aer taking measurements and performing ttings, we give our customers a rental hearing aid unit tted for each customer for about a month. Aer that, they can decide whether to pur-chase the unit. e service we provide before the purchase is basically oered free of charge.”We oer our customers this free hearing aid rental system because a person can experience discomfort when wearing a hearing aid for the rst time, with sounds like their own voice, chewing, or noises in the environment.“Some of our customers claim that wearing them. We then measure hearing levels once again while our customers are actually wearing the hearing aids. These steps help confirm the effectiveness of the hearing aids, both objectively and subjectively.“One of the most important steps in proposing hearing aids is the tting. As there are dierences in how each person might respond to sound, even for simple sounds, we have to account for these on an individual basis in order to provide the most comfortable hearing experience for each customer. Our store has 15 certied hearing aid technicians, including me, to provide the support our customers need.”To become a certied hearing aid tech-nician, you have to spend about four years studying various elds associated with hearing aids, including the electrical char-acteristics of hearing aids, acoustic knowledge, the theory underlying ttings, medical knowledge, and laws and regula-tions. en you have to pass the certication test. No other hearing aid shops in Japan employ so many certied hearing aid technicians.“e shop has a spacious design. It has semi-enclosed booths where we provide in-depth counseling to our customers. e three rooms that we call cyber booths each A Visit to the Rionet Center ShinjukuWataru EnosawaRionet Center, Medical Instrument Sales Department, Medical Instrument Divi-sion. Joined Rion in 1991. After spend-ing 11 years in the Hearing Aid Manu facturing Engineering Section where he was involved in hearing aid production, he was assigned to hospital sales activities before being assigned to his current position. “Lots of people hes-itate to come to a specialty shop for hearing aids. My everyday goal is to ful-ly satisfy my customers at each step, from introduction and tting to af-ter-sales maintenance services.”Waiting roomThe shop has been furnish-ed to offer the same level of comfort as an airport lounge or hotel lobby. Here visitors find three large monitor screens displaying the status of repair work, the shop’s latest information, and regular TV broadcasts.Rionet Center Shinjuku, a certified shop specializing in hearing aids, is managed directly by Rion, the company that developed the world’s first digital hearing aid. It’s situated in a convenient location, just a 5-minute walk from both Shinjuku Station and Yoyogi Station.Rionet Center Shinjuku, a certified shop specialized in hearing aidsThe Rionet Center first opened in Kanda, Tokyo, in 1961. In 1966, it relocated to Shinjuku, then reopened a short distance away in 2020. With its free hearing aid rental service and a system for assessing the effectiveness of hearing aids, the Rionet Center, in partnership with medical institutions, has served the hearing-impaired population for over a half century.On the Frontlines of Hearing SupportSPECIAL REPORT12Interview and article by Kana Yokota
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